The Great Golf Tournaments

It is through watching the great play their tournaments that the less talented golfers among us are inspired to keep trying to improve our game. Their talent, skill and tenacity when playing against each other are endlessly watch-able, live at the course or on television.

There are four major tournaments each year; the Open, usually just called the Open, the US Open, the Masters and the USPGA. To win one of these titles is to achieve one of the summits in golf. Only four players, Nicklaus, Player, Hogan and Sarazen, have won all four. However, this is a slightly misleading statistic as the Masters was first played in 1934. Vardon, Barnes, Walter Hagen, Bobby Jones and both Morrises won every tournament of their day. Of those who won three out of four, Arnold Palmer never won the USPGA, Lee Trevino never won the Masters, Tom Watson has never won the USPGA, Sam Snead never won the US Open, Byron Nelson never won the Open, though he might have done if World War II had not intervened, and Ray Floyd has never won the US Open.

1. The First Golf Open

2. The US Open

3. USPGA Championship

4. International Team Tournaments

5. The Curtis Cup and Eisenhower Trophy

6. The Walker Cup and Solheim Cup

7. The Masters

8. Winners of the Tournaments

9. World Cup and the Tournaments History

10. The Palmer Year

To illustrate how difficult it is to win a number of majors, only two people, Jack Nicklaus with 18 wins and Walter Hagen with 11, have won more than ten, while Gary Player and Ben Hogan have won nine each. Tom Watson has won eight, including the Open five times and Arnold Palmer, Bobby Jones, Harry Vardon, Gene Sarazen and Sam Snead have won seven each. Nick Faldo and Lee Trevino have each won six; in Faldo's case, three Masters and three Opens. If one were asked to name, at random, the greatest golfers who ever lived, this would be a fairly universal list to which most people would add J. H. Taylor and "Young" Tom Morris. Of the contemporary golfers who have won two or more titles, Nicklaus, Watson, Floyd, Crenshaw and Ballesteros are now virtually at the end of their careers. Faldo might still add another title to his six, as might Nick Price who has won three majors, the Open and the USPGA twice. John Daly, winner of the USPGA title in 1991 and the Open in 1995, definitely has the potential to add more titles, as he, more than any other player, has the capacity to reduce a course to its knees. Greg Norman should have won more majors than he has. It is doubtful whether the day of Strange, Lyle or Langer will come again and, apart from them, no other golfer playing has won more than one major. Indeed, several have the reputation of the finest golfer never to have won a major and Colin Montgomerie is rapidly reaching the top of this list.